No, It Ends With Us was not playing at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and never in a million years would it.
But I have a tradition, on days when I have only a single MIFF movie on the schedule, of using the evening's second viewing time slot to watch a regular old theatrical release. I'd say it makes the viewing of that theatrical release more memorable, but as I sit here and force myself to think of examples, the only one I can remember was watching the film that involved Hamlet reimagined from the perspective of his love interest, and retrofitted to have her not kill herself, Ophelia. I thought of reviewing my records for other examples, which would be easy enough to do, but resisted the temptation to sidetrack this post.
In all of those instances, it was a MIFF movie I saw in the 6 p.m. time slot and the "bonus" movie in the 9 p.m. time slot. Given the way the festival has been selling out this year, though, the only Tuesday movie I could find that I had some interest in seeing was in the 9 p.m. slot. So I scheduled to see It Ends With Us in the first slot, and then top it off with the MIFF movie.
Why was I even seeing It Ends With Us at all, and in fact, working out my schedule around that viewing rather than the other way around?
Well I'll tell you, though I hope my writer doesn't read this post.
One of my writers at my review site accepted an advanced screening for two -- though I think he went by himself -- to It Ends With Us last Tuesday, or maybe it was Wednesday. He wasn't sure he'd be able to make it due to a conflict, but then he did make it. I had given a moment's thought to replacing him at the screening, but then thought that if neither of us made it, I'd just tell the publicist that we had to cancel at the last moment. "We" being me because it's my name on the tickets, and if another writer goes, they have to pretend they're me. This always works, though I do wonder why they don't notice the disconnect between the name of the person who writes the review and the name of the person who attended the screening. The tickets are supposed to be "strictly non-transferable," after all.
But the fact is, it's my name on it, so it is officially me who attended. Therefore, it is my name that gets dragged through the mud if we don't write a review. Which was this writer's plan, or rather, what ended up happening when he said he couldn't find a good way in to review the movie. He said maybe he would just skip reviewing this one.
Okay, but that's not really how it works. This is a quid pro quo arrangement. I give you something (an advanced movie screening) and you give me something (a review, no matter how terrible it might be).
I guess something about the subject matter, which is intended for a female audience, made him hesitate to write a terrible review. One factor in that was he didn't actually think the movie was terrible. (I had told him I hoped it was "non-terrible" and he confirmed that it was.) But also he didn't know what to say about it. One of the responsibilities of writing film reviews is that you can find a way to review anything, but this guy only writes me a half-dozen reviews a year and I get that he doesn't have the years of professional experience that has given me this ability.
In any case, because it was me who supposedly attended -- and therefore, because it was me who would not be writing a review -- I had to swoop in and see the movie in order to review it. Which I did. You can find that review here. I actually liked it a lot better than I thought I would. Maybe it was the belly full of yummy Thai dinner. (Incidentally, I don't know if they actually check if you wrote the review, and hold it against you if you don't. But I come from a generation where people pride themselves on fulfilling their obligations, which is something that has fallen away a bit with the younger folk.)
In fact, I might not have been going to MIFF at all on Tuesday if not for the need to see It Ends With Us and get up a review while it was still within a week of the film's release. As you may recall, my mild disappointment with the MIFF schedule this year meant that I only secured tickets for four movies over the first weekend, so I could review some of them before their second screening -- again fulfilling an implied, if not actual, reviewing obligation. I decided to leave my remaining two free tickets, plus any others I might purchase, up to the whims of fate. Which, as mentioned earlier, were not particularly kind, as a lot of movies -- a lot more than I remembered from other years -- are selling out this year.
Which is how I ended up at my fifth of five 2024 MIFF movies whose primary language was English.
But, if we're thinking purely in terms of countries and their borders, at least it was somewhat international by being filmed and set in Canada.
Matt and Mara was, in truth, more than just a desperation play to make Tuesday night work out. One of the two titular characters is played by Matt Johnson, the actor-director who has appeared in each of the three features he's directed, most recently last year's BlackBerry, which also played MIFF but which I had already seen through U.S. iTunes by the time the festival started. (Which allowed me to review it as part of last year's MIFF preview on my site.) I was also a big fan of The Dirties and Operation Avalanche, though BlackBerry was the true favorite for me, ending up as my #5 film of 2023. Suffice it to say that at this point, I welcome anything Johnson does.
Plus there was the added benefit of Matt and Mara screening in the same venue as It Ends With Us, as Cinema Kino, the theater downstairs from where I used to work, is doing double duty with regular theatrical releases and MIFF films. After some low-level stress over the weekend in getting to and between venues, this was welcome.
Matt and Mara is vaguely in the mumblecore tradition, which is adjacent to Johnson's most familiar mode of faux documentary. Both forms rely heavily on naturalism, and that's probably a big reason why audiences like or don't like them.
Me, I like them. Matt and Mara is the sort of film that used to be plentiful but which doesn't get made as much anymore. It's a short (80-minute) feature that relies on seemingly improvisatory dialogue between Johnson and actress Deragh Campbell, whose name and face both felt familiar, but with whom it turns out I have no experience.
He's a big success, seemingly playing a version of himself as the character is named Matt Johnson, and is famous for having written a bestselling memoir of sorts (bestselling within the sphere of Canadian literature, at least). She's teaching literature at a Toronto university and has a child and likable musician husband. He's back in Toronto (from where, we don't know) for a couple weeks and pops in on her, hoping to rekindle a friendship that was once characterized by them being inseparable. Obviously something must have happened between them, because at first she finds his arrival jarring, before quickly falling into the old habits. These include walking around the city and having alternately deep and whimsical conversations in cafes.
There is a narrative spine here, as Mara is planning to take a trip to Ithaca in New York for a conference where she'll be a speaker, and at the last minute her husband can't drive her. (Mara apparently does not have a license.) So of course Matt fills in, and complications ensue.
Matt and Mara is brief enough that when it reaches the end, you feel like it stopped short of really saying anything. I guess that's why we rarely see films that are this short, because you can do just that much more in 90 minutes than you can in 80. However, I also felt a pretty high level of fondness for this movie, as these two actors are wonderfully charming presences with whom to spend this time, and their rapport is that of two old friends. I would not be surprised to learn that in real life, Campbell and Johnson are just that.
Incidentally, this makes for the second movie I've seen at MIFF that has a character named Matt, or some derivation of Matt, in the title. In 2019 I saw Matthias et Maxime, directed by Xavier Dolan -- also a Canadian, but from the French-speaking part.
Okay, as of this writing, I again don't have my next MIFF tickets secured, but the festival goes for another week and I am sure to get out once if not twice more.
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